Private Dancer [Paperback]

Stephen Leather (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 24, 2005

Pete wanders into a Bangkok go-go bar and meets the love of his life. Joy is young, stunning, and a pole dancer. In a roller-coaster ride of sex, drugs, and deception, Pete discovers that his own very private dancer is not all she claims to be. Far from being the love of his life, Joy is his own personal nightmare!

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Because of all of its local wisdom, Private Dancer ought to be made available to every tourist at port of entry."—Bangkok Post, Thailand

"The best book regarding relationships with bargirls that you can ever read. This should be compulsory reading for all first-timers to Thailand."—Pattaya Mail, Thailand

About the Author

Stephen Leather is also the author of 20 thrillers (published by Hodder & Stoughton) that have been translated into more than a dozen languages, including The Tunnel Rats, The Solitary Man and, more recently, Soft Target. Two of his novels, The Bombmaker and The Stretch have been filmed for television in the UK and he has written for TV shows such as London's Burning and the BBC's Murder in Mind. He resides in Dublin, Ireland.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Monsoon Books Pte. Ltd. (August 24, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9810539169
• ISBN-13: 978-9810539160
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 4.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #70,512 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stephen Leather was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Before that, he was employed as a biochemist for ICI, shovelled limestone in a quarry, worked as a baker, a petrol pump attendant, a barman, and worked for the Inland Revenue. He began writing full time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series. You can find out more from his website, www.stephenleather.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hey, Joe! Me love you long time., November 22, 2005

By 

Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Private Dancer (Paperback)

When I was young and single, I fantasized about visiting Bangkok's fleshpot buffet. But, even 11 years in the Navy didn't provide the opportunity as I never made it away from Stateside. Now that I'm older, married, and only marginally wiser, I doubt that my wife would let me go - even if I could imagine conjuring up the energy to carouse once I got there. And there is, of course, the sobering specter of AIDS. But, should any of you young studs embark on the tour, PRIVATE DANCER should be required reading before reaching the airport departure gate.

Pete is a freelance writer hired by a publishing house to edit a new cookery book/travel guide for Thailand. Once ensconced in Bangkok, Pete is introduced to the red-light district by friend Nigel, where Pete meets pole dancer/prostitute Joy in the Zombie Bar. Pete is smitten despite advice from the resident expats that it's best not to get emotionally involved with a bar babe. And despite all the evidence, some provided by a private detective, that Joy is simply using Pete as a cash ATM, that she's married to a Thai man, and that she has sex with other farang (foreign) customers when he's out of town, Pete remains enamored of his PRIVATE DANCER. He desperately wants to believe her excuses, lies, and proclamations of true love - "I love you and have you in my heart only one. Miss you all the time."

Author Stephen Leather takes an interesting approach to the story, telling it alternately from the viewpoints of Pete, Joy, Pete's farang friends and acquaintances (Nigel, Big Ron, Bruce, Jimmy), the private detective Phiraphan, Pete's employer Alistair, and a certain Professor Bruno Mayer, an expert on prostitution in Thailand and cross-cultural relationships between the sex workers and their customers. What results is a fascinating and informative parable on the perils of falling for a Bangkok hooker that's probably just as valid no matter what the city, country, or nationality of the working girl. Indeed, as Stephen describes the milieu of Pete's tragic experience, the reader perhaps understands that it's more of a culture clash than anything else. From Joy's perspective, her life and means of getting money for herself and her family back in their village are nothing unusual or immoral. For her, emotional love for, and the provision of money by, a man are two sides of the same coin. The problem for westerner Pete, a Brit, is that he necessarily separates the two. In the end, the open-minded reader can rightly attach no blame to either, but only marvel at Pete's foolishness in the face of good advice from his Anglo and Australian friends that are old Bangkok hands.

PRIVATE DANCER seemed, at times, a bit too long for the message. In an email correspondence with Leather, I asked if the tale was based on the experience of anyone he knew. With utter candor, the author implied that at least some of the story derived from his own youthful follies. Perhaps Stephen was driven to over-emphasize the lesson - "Don't let this happen to you!" In any case, the book is an engaging addition to the backpack as you set out to sample the neon-bathed, x-rated delights of Patpong, Nana Plaza, and Soi Cowboy.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mott's Private Dancer, February 3, 2008

By 

Kim Fletcher (Pattaya, Chonburi Thailand) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Private Dancer (Paperback)

Posted by Admin / 31. January 2008, 03:37
UP UNTIL a couple of weeks ago, I must have been the only foreigner in Thailand who had not read Stephen Leather's novel Private Dancer. I knew about the book; I'd heard great things about the book; but I'm not what you would call a prolific reader, having read perhaps only twenty books during my lifetime. A friend loaned me his copy of Private Dancer and, thanks to two visits to Bangkok in three days, I found the four road trips of two hours each provided the perfect opportunity to finally read it.

I've never done a book review since I finished high school and I don't intend to start now, but I must report on what I discovered was a fabulous book. First of all, Private Dancer is a novel with the usual disclaimer that "All characters in this publication are fictitious ..." I don't believe that for a second; the reason being that I have personally met them all. They may not have been the exact characters Mr. Leather was referring to but they were their cosmic clones. Trust me, these people do exist. In fact, I was once one of them but I'm not going to disclose which one!
In this I found the only negative feature of the book: I suspect it would be far more enjoyable if the reader had prior knowledge of Thailand and, in particular, the foreign bar scene. To someone who has never been to Thailand, a lot of the events, the irony and the dialogue may be wasted. Nevertheless, I could relate to all of it and form a clear picture of every scene in my head, making it chilling reading.
This was another indication that although the novel may be a fictional story in its entirety, it must be based on a series of real events. Nobody could describe episodes so accurately and believably without having either experienced them himself or observed them first hand. Putting it crudely; you can't make this stuff up! For example, there is a scene in which the enraged hero tries to smash a television set. He throws it to the floor repeatedly and kicks it but still the screen doesn't break. Having never attempted this silliness myself and with a negligible knowledge of electronics, I would have thought a television set was a sensitive piece of equipment and the screen would be delicate. Our hero eventually gives up with the words, "God knows what they make the screens from, but take it from me, they're practically indestructible." In my opinion you would not know that unless you had actually tried it yourself or witnessed someone else in the act.
I confess that when I was a quarter way through the book, I had to stop reading. It was making me angry and frustrated. How could any man be so blind and stupid? I found myself shouting at the main character and fighting the urge to rip him from the pages, grab him by the throat and slap some sense into him - one slap for each syllable of my lecture. This was the beauty of Mr. Leather's prose; he made me feel like I was part of the action and, irrationally, that I could actually do something about it.
Thankfully, once my blood pressure went down I picked the book up again and continued reading. I thought the best line was after the hero broke into his girlfriend's apartment to find her alone with a young Thai man. When he'd calmed down some time later, she explained, "Pete, he not my boyfriend. He my drug dealer." Wow! Isn't that a position in which every man in love would like finding himself? Does he accept she is screwing around or does he accept she is a junkie? Talk about having to choose the lesser of two evils!
But the novel is predominantly about the Bangkok bar scene and the inherent deceit and deception - from both sides. There are no chapters to break up the flow and I liked the way every pivotal event is related from the viewpoint of each of the participants. Basically, you get to hear both sides of the story and can make up your own mind which one you believe.
There are also some poignant comments about, and criticisms of, foreign men who flirt with the bar scene. Some commentary is supposedly extracted from an essay `Cross-Cultural Complications of Prostitution in Thailand' by a real or fictitious Prof. Bruno Mayer. A scathing attack comes from one of the characters, a Thai private investigator. I felt the overwhelming desire to disagree with much of what he said but for the life of me I couldn't think up a valid argument to use. Citing one or two exceptions does not invalidate a rule unless the rule or argument uses specific terms like `all', `none', `every' or `never'.
The only statement I could dispute was, "But one thing is for sure - the relationship [between sex tourists and bargirls] won't last. Guaranteed." First you need to define the term `last'. A high percentage of marriages in the West between non-sex tourists and non-bargirls end in divorce. Some last a week; some last for many years. Does a happy 10-year marriage suddenly gone sour constitute a relationship failure? If so, and the only benchmark of success is `till death us do part', then there are a lot of unsuccessful relationships throughout the world, not just those originating in Thailand.
Being branded a `long term sex tourist' didn't thrill me either, having never thought of myself in those terms. But then I asked myself the definitive question: if they closed down all the bars and sent the girls packing back to their families, would I still want to live here? The answer, unfortunately, was `no'. Mr. Leather was correct once again.
Private Dancer contains hard and valuable lessons for us all and, as the cover says, "Should be compulsory reading for all first-timers to Thailand." I agree, with the rider that, once they've read it the first time without fully understanding it, they should wait a few weeks or months then read it again. All will become clear.
From Pattaya Today

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PRIVATE DANCER - A MUST READ FOR ANYONE GOING TO BANGKOK, February 20, 2006

By 

John Petrocelli "New York Hypnotist" (New York City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Private Dancer (Paperback)

Imagine, picking up a novel where you were so absolutely riveted, so drawn into the characters that you could actully feel the drippy heat of a Bangkok night and the racing of your heart as a drop dead, brown-skinned Thai women in a go-go bar lets loose a smile that just locks up your heart ..... . Well, that's what happened to me. I couldn't put this thriller down. My 20 hour flight from Bangkok home to NYC seemed like a mere extension of my visit as I was just sucked right back into that vortex of illusion hidden between the pages of Stephen Leather's Private Dancer. If one has any questions to what was going on in the Bangkok bar scene, how middled aged white males go over there and fall completely, head-over-heels in love with these brown skinned asian beauties ... or .... why men get hooked and live their 9 to 5's 11 months a year to fly clear across the world to this Asian Hotspot, this book answers it and more .... But it also destroys the illusions. It reveals the truth. The pathetic side. To impoverished Thai women, men are merely walking ATM cash dispensers. To the men, these are instant girlfriends, phenomenal actresses, whom within minutes, can elicit feelings of love no western woman could complete with, all enveloped in a package of innocence ... of youthfulness, the male fantasy we were promised by Hollywood. If you're planning a trip to Bangkok and you're male and are tempted in any way to investigate the sex scene or just wondering about those beautiful smiling Thai women beckoning you on, with a knowing glint in their eyes , please read this book. It will have you walking in with your eyes solidly open and even now, as I think about this book, I hope Mr. Leather writes a sequel, because, sitting now at 6 AM in the morning back in my NYC apartment this chilly February morning, his work has put me right back there in the heat of a Bangkok night. - John Petrocelli - trancecoach.com